Lorenzo the Magnificent is the head of the House of Medici, condemned to “living death” (muerte en vida), in the Italian arc of Invisible Cities (T2).
| Type | Character |
| Spanish entry | Lorenzo el Magnífico |
History
He does not appear in person but “in a projected, vicarious way”, from a zone of floating megaliths holding something like a confessional: a wooden octagon of darkness, a grille, and beyond it a shadow in a red hat. There he receives the imprisoned Luca de’ Medici. His brother was killed on the day of the consecration of Corpus Christi, with the Pope behind the plot that blessed the killer priests. Lorenzo survived and went alone to negotiate with Ferrante of Naples so the people would not suffer.
Savonarola signed his sentence. As proof of repentance he demanded that Lorenzo cease to be prince of the city and donate all his property and power. Lorenzo refused, knowing it would leave him at his enemies’ mercy, and Savonarola denied him the last rites, leaving him an intermediate dead man who negotiates for the living.
He ransoms Luca for about 1,200,000 florins and seals a spoken pact: Luca cannot be podestà (a Medici cannot), but can be guardian of Lorenzo’s surviving son, presented to Florence as a distant relative, a rebirth of the Medici. He warns that “a daemonic Horseman of the Apocalypse is arriving”, Auro, because Graz’zt opened the gates to war.